Despite the digital leap on covid time digital skills of vocational teachers and students are still at very different levels. The project contributed to bridging this gap and deepened the understanding that both teachers and students need to have the digital skills required for effective e-learning, because gap in digital skills undermines learning outcomes and creates inequalities between students. By improving the pedagogical e-learning skills of VET teachers, the project aimed to improve the quality of e-learning and create a more inclusive learning environment. It is important that VET-teachers have the skills needed to deliver quality and inclusive education online. Improving VET-teachers' pedagogical online teaching skills leads to VET-teachers´ growing understanding of how to best incorporate digital online technology into subject-specific teaching, education and learning including on-the-job learning. Teachers themselves can produce ideas how to best follow-up VET-students´ competence development, how to do exams or assessment online, how to deliver inclusive online training and how to do other pedagogically meaningful operations and actions online maintaining the same quality level as in classroom situations. The main objective of the project was to improve the pedagogical online teaching skills of VET teachers, thereby increasing the digital skills of both teachers and students. This will enable VET teachers to provide high quality and inclusive teaching online and virtually. Although also technical aspects arose during the project and in the outputs, the main focus was on digital pedagogical and interaction-enhancing skills. The project aimed to develop a digitally pedagogically oriented participatory online teaching design that can be applied in different countries and institutions regardless of the learning platform and technologies used. The idea was to collaborate with educators from different backgrounds, exchanging ideas and best practices to develop the design. The course developed by the project will enable VET teachers to familiarise themselves with digital pedagogy and adopt new ways of using technology, thus closing the skills gap between teachers. The long-term goal is to increase equity in VET in terms of the use of digital learning environments and tools. Improved quality of e-learning and participatory learning experiences will increase students' digital skills and active participation in e-learning processes. During the two project years there were monthly online meetings, work was done on the Teams platform, as well as virtual and live workshops. Participants were project workers and teachers, all of whom had experience and expertise in using digital learning environments and technical tools. The work was process-oriented and between meetings the participants did the given pre-assignments and various digital teaching experiments. As a result of this continuous process, outputs were designed, carried out and evaluated. IO1 surveys served as support (basis) for the development of the IO2 design and the elements of good interactive online teaching collected in IO2 guided the development of the content of the IO3 online course. During the whole project participants presented their project results at their own organisations´ meetings and at various events. An article about the first project output was written for a Slovenian seminar, at the Taitaja event in Finland a presentation of the project to international guests, at WinNova the results were presented to the guests of the international seminar, and a poster was made at TAMK for the international event, and an event for professional teachers was held in the Netherlands from outputs. The planned activities and target groups: Mapping of the pedagogical online learning models already in use in the partner countries (Finland, Slovenia, Netherlands). Developing a common inclusive digipedagogical model that can be exploited regardless of the digital learning environment, digital programs and digital tools that are in use. This model includes, for example, online learning quality criteria, good practices and examples of inclusive online learning. Creating training material for vocational teachers to improve VET-teachers´skills in planning and implementing an inclusive online course. The training material will be availabe e.g. in eTwinning platform (eTwinning group or/and learning event) but also to other open access platforms. The direct target group of the project is VET-teachers but indirectly also VET-learners will benefit from the project activities, outputs and long-term impact. IO1 Investigative research compared online learning methods in partner countries and gathered teachers' and students' opinions. The teacher survey aimed to identify current practices, required skills, and training needs for inclusive online education. The student survey collected VET students' perspectives about e-learning. Desk investigation focused on existing studies and practices in partner countries' VET education. IO2 Design of good participatory online learning we described good practices for activating e-learning and engaging students, regardless of the technology used. IO3 produced a joint online course for vocational teachers. It includes exercises, examples, and guidelines for designing, implementing, and evaluating participatory e-learning. The training material covered e-learning scripts, participatory methods, assessment strategies, feedback approaches, student activation techniques, and methods for enhancing interaction. Examples and criteria are adaptable to different platforms used by partners. Teachers from partner countries and TAMK University of Applied Sciences contributed to the development, drawing on their extensive experience in digital teaching methods.
The main objective of the project was to improve the pedagogical online teaching skills of VET teachers, thereby increasing the digital skills of both teachers and students. This will enable VET teachers to provide high quality and inclusive teaching online and virtually. Although also technical aspects arose during the project and in the outputs, the main focus was on digital pedagogical and interaction-enhancing skills. The project aimed to develop a digitally pedagogically oriented participatory online teaching design that can be applied in different countries and institutions regardless of the learning platform and technologies used. The idea was to collaborate with educators from different backgrounds, exchanging ideas and best practices to develop the design. The course developed by the project will enable VET teachers to familiarise themselves with digital pedagogy and adopt new ways of using technology, thus closing the skills gap between teachers. The long-term goal is to increase equity in VET in terms of the use of digital learning environments and tools. Improved quality of e-learning and participatory learning experiences will increase students' digital skills and active participation in e-learning processes.
Despite the digital leap on covid time digital skills of vocational teachers and students are still at very different levels. The project contributed to bridging this gap and deepened the understanding that both teachers and students need to have the digital skills required for effective e-learning, because gap in digital skills undermines learning outcomes and creates inequalities between students. By improving the pedagogical e-learning skills of VET teachers, the project aimed to improve the quality of e-learning and create a more inclusive learning environment. It is important that VET-teachers have the skills needed to deliver quality and inclusive education online. Improving VET-teachers' pedagogical online teaching skills leads to VET-teachers´ growing understanding of how to best incorporate digital online technology into subject-specific teaching, education and learning including on-the-job learning. Teachers themselves can produce ideas how to best follow-up VET-students´ competence development, how to do exams or assessment online, how to deliver inclusive online training and how to do other pedagogically meaningful operations and actions online maintaining the same quality level as in classroom situations.